Download or read book Human Action in Thomas Aquinas John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham written by Thomas Michael Osborne and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sets out a thematic presentation of human action, especially as it relates to morality, in the three most significant figures in Medieval Scholastic thought: Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham

Download or read book Thomas Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Human Act written by Can Laurens Löwe and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-08 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a novel account of Aquinas's theory of the human act. It argues that Aquinas takes a human act to be a composite of two power-exercises, where one relates to the other as form to matter. The formal component is an act of the will, and the material component is a power-exercise caused by the will, which Aquinas refers to as the 'commanded act.' The book also argues that Aquinas conceptualizes the act of free choice as a hylomorphic composite: it is, materially, an act of the will, but it inherits a form from reason. As the book aims to show, the core idea of Aquinas's hylomorphic action theory is that the exercise of one power can structure the exercise of another power, and this provides a helpful way to think of the presence of cognition in conation and of intention in bodily movement.

Download or read book Perfecting Human Actions written by John Michael Rziha and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the last few centuries, a practical dichotomy between God and humans has developed within moral theory. As a result, moral theory tends to focus only on humans where human autonomy is foundational or only on God where divine commands capriciously rule. However, the moral theology of Thomas Aquinas overcomes this dichotomy. For Thomas, humans reach their perfection by participating in God's wisdom and love. Perfecting Human Actions explores the ways humans participate in eternal law--God's wisdom that guides and moves all things to their proper action. The book begins with a thoughtful examination of the philosophic recovery of the notion of participation in Thomistic metaphysics. It then explains Thomas's theological understanding of the notion of participation to show how humans are related to God. It is discovered that when performing human actions, humans participate in the eternal law in two ways: as moved and governed by it, and cognitively. In reference to participation as moved and governed, humans are directed by God to their proper end of eternal happiness. This mode of participation can be increased by perfecting the natural inclinations through virtue, grace, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In reference to cognitive participation, humans as rational creatures can know their proper end and how to attain it. Through this knowledge of moral truths, the intellect participates in the eternal law. Cognitive participation is perfected by the intellectual virtues (especially faith) and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (especially wisdom). The book concludes by showing how the notion of human participation in the eternal law is a much better foundation for moral theory than the contemporary notion of autonomy. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John Rziha is associate professor of theology at Benedictine College. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: " A] competent and indeed masterful study. . . . Rziha's book is to be welcomed as not just an important, but indeed an overdue contribution to the contemporary recovery of Aquinas's moral theory. More importantly, this study is of surpassing importance in advancing the correct understanding of the relationship between human freedom and natural law. . . . Rziha's lucidly written and well-documented study displays all the characteristics of a competent and learned interpretation of the thought of the doctor communis according to the highest standards of current Aquinas scholarship."--Reinhard Hutter, Thomist "Rziha explores at length the two modes by which human participate in God's eternal law: as moved and governed by it and as having knowledge of it. . . . T]his book proves to be something of a comprehensive course in Thomistic thought. This project is supported by extensive and meticulous footnote reverences to texts of Aquinas." --Janine Marie Idziak, Speculum

Download or read book The Specification of Human Actions in St Thomas Aquinas written by Joseph Pilsner and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2006-04-27 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Aquinas believed that human actions have species, such as theft or almsgiving. A problem arises, however, concerning his teaching on how such moral kinds are determined. Aquinas uses five different terms - end, object, matter, circumstance, and motive - to identify what gives species to human actions. Although similarities in meaning can be discerned between certain of these terms, apparent differences between others make it difficult to grasp how all five could refer to what specifies human actions. Joseph Pilsner examines and compares Aquinas's understanding of these five terms to see if a consistent account of his teaching on specification can be proposed.

Download or read book Commentary on Thomas Aquinas s Treatise on Happiness and Ultimate Purpose written by J. Budziszewski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-09 with total page 705 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monumental, line-by-line commentary makes Thomas Aquinas's classic Treatise on Happiness and Ultimate Purpose accessible to all readers. Budziszewski illuminates arguments that even specialists find challenging: What is happiness? Is it something that we have, feel, or do? Does it lie in such things as wealth, power, fame, having friends, or knowing God? Can it actually be attained? This book's luminous prose makes Aquinas's treatise transparent, bringing to light profound underlying issues concerning knowledge, meaning, human psychology, and even the nature of reality.

Download or read book Good and Evil Actions written by Steven J. Jensen and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2010-03 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Good and Evil Actions, Steven J. Jensen navigates a path through the debate, retrieving what is of value from each interpretation

Download or read book Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature written by Robert Pasnau and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major new study of Aquinas and his central project: the understanding of human nature.

Download or read book A Tour of the Summa written by Paul J. Glenn and published by Aeterna Press. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We may adapt a remark of St. Thomas Aquinas, and apply it to his own great work, the Summa Theologica: not everyone has talent to master this work; not everyone has a taste for the study it requires; not everyone has time to devote to such study. Aeterna Press

Download or read book The Ethics of Aquinas written by Stephen J. Pope and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive anthology, twenty-seven outstanding scholars from North America and Europe address every major aspect of Thomas Aquinas's understanding of morality and comment on his remarkable legacy. While there has been a revival of interest in recent years in the ethics of St. Thomas, no single work has yet fully examined the basic moral arguments and content of Aquinas' major moral work, the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae. This work fills that lacuna. The first chapters of The Ethics of Aquinas introduce readers to the sources, methods, and major themes of Aquinas's ethics. The second part of the book provides an extended discussion of ideas in the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae, in which contributors present cogent interpretations of the structure, major arguments, and themes of each of the treatises. The third and final part examines aspects of Thomistic ethics in the twentieth century and beyond. These essays reflect a diverse group of scholars representing a variety of intellectual perspectives. Contributors span numerous fields of study, including intellectual history, medieval studies, moral philosophy, religious ethics, and moral theology. This remarkable variety underscores how interpretations of Thomas's ethics continue to develop and evolve-and stimulate fervent discussion within the academy and the church. This volume is aimed at scholars, students, clergy, and all those who continue to find Aquinas a rich source of moral insight.

Download or read book Treatise on Happiness written by St. Thomas Aquinas and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 1984-01-01 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Treatise on Happiness and the accompanying Treatise on Human Acts comprise the first twenty-one questions of I-II of the Summa Theologiae. From his careful consideration of what true happiness is, to his comprehensive discussion of how it can be attained, St. Thomas Aquinas offers a challenging and classic statement of the goals of human life, both ultimate and proximate. This translation presents in accurate, consistent, contemporary English the great Christian thinker's enduring contributions on the subject of man's happiness.

Download or read book Aquinas and the Nicomachean Ethics written by Tobias Hoffmann and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-25 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is the text which had the single greatest influence on Aquinas's ethical writings, and the historical and philosophical value of Aquinas's appropriation of this text provokes lively debate. In this volume of new essays, thirteen distinguished scholars explore how Aquinas receives, expands on and transforms Aristotle's insights about the attainability of happiness, the scope of moral virtue, the foundation of morality and the nature of pleasure. They examine Aquinas's commentary on the Ethics and his theological writings, above all the Summa theologiae. Their essays show Aquinas to be a highly perceptive interpreter, but one who also brings certain presuppositions to the Ethics and alters key Aristotelian notions for his own purposes. The result is a rich and nuanced picture of Aquinas's relation to Aristotle that will be of interest to readers in moral philosophy, Aquinas studies, the history of theology and the history of philosophy.

Download or read book Aquinas s Ethics written by Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work places Thomas Aquinas's moral theory in its full philosophical and theological context in a way that makes Aquinas accessible to students and interested general readers.

Download or read book Action and Conduct written by Stephen Brock and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2021-05-07 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Both Thomistic scholars and analytic philosophers interested in theories of human action and accountability will find this book a welcome addition to their libraries. Truly a substantive addition to both Thomistic scholarship and the ongoing analytic investigation into human action and responsible agency."—American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly "A first-rate book...Brock's lucid and illuminating analysis offers much of value to both intellectual historians and theologians, as well as philosophers."—Theological Studies"Brock's treatment of Aquinas's account of action exhibits a rare combination of rigor and learning. It is, no doubt, the best we have."—The Thomist

Download or read book Thomas Aquinas on Virtue and Human Flourishing written by Stephen Theron and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2018-04-18 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Aquinas offers teleological systematisation of the habits needed for human flourishing. His metaphysical jurisprudence remodels ethics upon this, rather than on a moral precept. “Eternal law” governing the world determines “natural law”, reflected in human legislation (a variety of the “anthropic principle”). Finally, law, unwritten, is infused spirit as self-consciousness, “universal of universals”. Acquired virtues elicit this, become effusion, represented in religion as gifts or graces. But mind’s or spirit’s omnipresence, necessarily “closer to me than I am to myself”, supersedes the abstractions of heteronomy versus autonomy. The habitual well-being brought by prudence, justice, courage and temperance prompts this picture of gifts and graces. The “theological virtues”, faith (explicit or implicit) and hope fulfilled in love, “crown” our natural rationality, set toward as being the universal. “Become what you are”. Heteronomous law is thus “defused” at root by grounding it entirely upon immovable spiritual (mental) inclination towards universal fulfilment as naturally desired, reflection shows. Virtue, finally, is best assessed as a capacity for the individually beautiful yet habit-based action, Aristotle’s to kalon. Aquinas puts this picture as summed up in the beatitudes of the “Sermon on the Mount”.

Download or read book Commentary on Thomas Aquinas s Treatise on Law written by J. Budziszewski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-22 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natural moral law stands at the center of Western ethics and jurisprudence and plays a leading role in interreligious dialogue. Although the greatest source of the classical natural law tradition is Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Law, the Treatise is notoriously difficult, especially for nonspecialists. J. Budziszewski has made this formidable work luminous. This book - the first classically styled, line-by-line commentary on the Treatise in centuries - reaches out to philosophers, theologians, social scientists, students, and general readers alike. Budziszewski shows how the Treatise facilitates a dialogue between author and reader. Explaining and expanding upon the text in light of modern philosophical developments, he expounds this work of the great thinker not by diminishing his reasoning, but by amplifying it.

Download or read book Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life written by Fabrizio Amerini and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-10 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contemporary discussions of abortion, both sides argue well-worn positions, particularly concerning the question, When does human life begin? Though often invoked by the Catholic Church for support, Thomas Aquinas in fact held that human life begins after conception, not at the moment of union. But his overall thinking on questions of how humans come into being, and cease to be, is more subtle than either side in this polarized debate imagines. Fabrizio Amerini—an internationally-renowned scholar of medieval philosophy—does justice to Aquinas’ views on these controversial issues. Some pro-life proponents hold that Aquinas’ position is simply due to faulty biological knowledge, and if he knew what we know today about embryology, he would agree that human life begins at conception. Others argue that nothing Aquinas could learn from modern biology would have changed his mind. Amerini follows the twists and turns of Aquinas’ thinking to reach a nuanced and detailed solution in the final chapters that will unsettle familiar assumptions and arguments. Systematically examining all the pertinent texts and placing each in historical context, Amerini provides an accurate reconstruction of Aquinas’ account of the beginning and end of human life and assesses its bioethical implications for today. This major contribution is available to an English-speaking audience through translation by Mark Henninger, himself a noted scholar of medieval philosophy.

Download or read book Habits and Holiness written by Ezra Sullivan and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2020-11-18 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This comprehensive exploration of Thomas Aquinas's theology of habit takes habits in general as a prism for understanding human action and its influences and provides a unique synthesis of Thomistic virtue theory, modern science of habits, and best practices for eliminating bad habits and living good habits"--